In an era when more and more studios and streaming services are cutting costs, it can be surprising to see a studio be so confident in a property that they give it multiple seasons before a single episode has aired. In the case of Amazon Prime Video’s new series, Cross, though, that’s exactly what happened.
The show, which is based on James Patterson’s best-selling novels about a detective and forensic pathologist who analyzes the minds of killers as he works to catch them, has been renewed for a second season before its first season has premiered. The show stars Aldis Hodge as Alex Cross and also stars Ryan Eggold, Isaiah Mustafa, Alona Tal, Johnny Ray Gill, Eloise Mumford and Siobhan Murphy.
Cross first landed a series order at Prime Video in October of 2022 and had been in development for two years before that. Paramount Television Studios and Skydance Television, the companies behind Prime Video’s ultra-successful series Jack Ryan, are also producing this series.
This is far from the first Alex Cross adaptation
Alex Cross has been featured in 32 different James Patterson novels, including 2023’s Alex Cross Must Die. The character has also been adapted to the screen before. Tyler Perry took on the role in 2012’s Alex Cross, and Morgan Freeman played the character twice in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, which were adaptations of two of Patterson’s novels.
Given the level of interest around the series, it makes sense that it would get a second season push before it even premiers (no firm date has been scheduled yet).
Prime Video is all in on dad TV
Prime Video’s premature renewal of Cross is an important reminder that many of the shows that seem to work best for the streaming service are things like Jack Ryan, Bosch, and Reacher. All of these shows were adapted from crime novels of one kind or another, and they’re all an ideal combination of high and low-brow.
These kinds of shows are meant to appeal to a certain kind of middle-aged man who loves procedurals and shows that function in a similar mold. They aren’t necessarily groundbreaking or inventive, but they can be a lot of fun to watch precisely because you know exactly what you’re getting the moment you sit down to watch an episode.
Of course, we haven’t actually seen a minute of Cross yet, so it’s possible that the series is much more avant garde than one might expect. Even if it is exactly the kind of TV that dads love to binge, though, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the show won’t be well-made or compelling. Dads need good TV to watch, just like the rest of us, and many of Prime Video’s most popular shows are proof that dads love Prime Video.
